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Does The Catholic Church “Otherize” Women?

Does The Catholic Church “Otherize” Women?

Last updated on: December 12, 2025 at 1:35 pm by Dennis Knapp

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Does The Catholic Church “Otherize” Women? 2025-12-12T13:35:00-06:00 Dennis Knapp

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In my two most recent articles, I examined how Marxist and postmodern thought influence Catholics—and why these worldviews cannot coexist with a Catholic understanding of the human person. Both Marxism and postmodernism replace the Church’s traditional anthropology, rooted in Natural Law, with the idea that human reality begins and ends with the “constructed self.”

For Marxism, the human person exists as a byproduct of material and social forces such as class, economics, and race. It divides humanity into “oppressed” and “oppressor” and interprets moral claims through that lens. Postmodernism, on the other hand, treats meaning as something the autonomous self creates. It elevates authenticity, identity, and lived experience as the highest goods.

Why bring this up again?

Because the Vatican just released a document that closes the possibility of ordaining women to the diaconate (and, by extension, to the priesthood). In response, advocates for women’s ordination immediately accused the Church of “otherizing” women—most notably Phyllis Zagano of Hofstra University, writing in the National Catholic Reporter.

In her article, Zagano once again relies on Marxist and postmodern categories—oppressed versus oppressor, identity politics, and subjective experience—to cast theological judgment on the Church. She does this while ignoring the document’s substantive theological reasoning. Her reaction demonstrates, yet again, how fundamentally incompatible these secular worldviews are with Catholicism.

First Move: Turning Catholic Sacramental Theology into “Othering”

Zagano opens her article with a full-court-press attack on Catholic ordination theology. She argues that the Church’s refusal to ordain women—because women cannot “image” the male Christ—reveals an essentially sexist sacramental structure. From this premise, she concludes that the Church officially views women as “other.”

But this reaction raises an obvious question: if Zagano truly is an “expert” on this topic, why does she express surprise or outrage at “imaging” language? The Church has consistently taught that Holy Orders is nuptial in nature. The Vatican document she criticizes makes this point explicit:

The masculinity of Christ, and therefore the masculinity of those who receive Holy Orders, is not accidental but is an integral part of sacramental identity, preserving the divine order of salvation in Christ. To alter this reality would not be a simple adjustment of ministry but a rupture of the nuptial meaning of salvation.

In Catholic theology, men “image” Christ precisely in His role as Bridegroom to the Church. Their maleness is not an interchangeable cultural construct but part of the symbolic and sacramental logic of Holy Orders. Under this understanding, ordaining women is not a minor liturgical modification. It would constitute a rupture in the Church’s entire nuptial vision of salvation.

Advocates often respond: Fine, that applies to priests—but not to deacons.

The Vatican document addresses that objection as well. It emphasizes the unity of Holy Orders: bishop, priest, and deacon represent three degrees of a single sacramental reality, with the bishop embodying the fullness of the sacrament. Because the diaconate is not separable from priesthood and episcopacy, granting women access to the first degree while excluding them from the remaining degrees creates a theological contradiction. If a woman receives ordination, she receives all that ordination entails.

Zagano ignores every one of these points in her article.

Second Move: Weaponizing Scandal to Force Reform

Next, Zagano shifts from theology to optics. She argues that this Vatican document further damages the Church’s already damaged public image. She writes:

The commentary, signed by retired Italian Cardinal Giuseppe Petrocchi, further damages the world’s picture of the Catholic Church, already tarnished by abuse scandals and reports of financial mismanagement.

Notice the move here. She points out that a retired cardinal—an elderly, celibate man—signed a document that allegedly “others” a marginalized group (women) at a time when the Church faces more urgent issues like sexual abuse and financial misconduct. The implication is clear: male oppressors inside the Church have chosen to continue oppressing women, adding moral failure on top of moral failure.

Scandal stacked upon scandal.

In Zagano’s framing, the Church’s theological position itself becomes a form of abuse—a symbolic extension of the damage already inflicted through past sins. If the Church wants to repair its reputation, she suggests, it should abandon patriarchal structures and “liberate” women by opening Holy Orders to them.

This rhetorical move relies entirely on the Marxist dynamic of oppressor versus oppressed. It treats doctrinal boundaries not as theological claims but as expressions of power that perpetuate institutional harm. By tying the Church’s teaching on ordination to unrelated scandals, Zagano reframes the issue as a moral crisis rather than a theological question.

Third Move: Replacing Theology With Power Analysis

Zagano’s first two moves—accusing the Church of “othering” women and treating a theological question as “one more moral crisis”—prepare the ground for her third and most revealing maneuver: reframing a theological issue as a Marxist power struggle.

In her telling, the Church does not defend the faith handed down from Christ and the apostles. Instead, it allegedly uses theology as a tool to oppress women. This move reduces the Church from a sacramental organism to a merely human institution governed by power dynamics. Whether she intends it or not, Zagano’s argument treats the Church as an engine of domination rather than the Body of Christ.

Within this framework:

Symbolism—the priest “imaging” Christ—becomes a mechanism for excluding women.
Sacrament—Holy Orders reserved to men—becomes an act of domination.
Hierarchy becomes patriarchal oppression.
Theology itself becomes harmful.

In short, Zagano trades Catholic sacramental theology for grievance over power.

The Church, however, does not operate within this interpretive grid. It thinks in terms of sacramental metaphysics—nature, grace, symbol, and sacrament. The Vatican document reflects this logic consistently. It seeks to preserve the unity of Holy Orders by upholding its nuptial symbolism, not by capitulating to identity politics.

Because Zagano rejects this metaphysical framework, she cannot accept the document’s conclusions. She never engages its reasoning because her worldview makes genuine theology unintelligible from the outset.

Final Thoughts… Does the Church “Otherize” Women?

So, does the Church “otherize” women?

Only if we replace Catholic theology with the ideological frameworks that critics like Zagano bring to the debate. Within Marxist and postmodern categories (where identity defines truth and power explains everything) any difference in vocation becomes oppression, any distinction becomes exclusion, and any sacramental claim becomes a political weapon. Viewed through that lens, the Church will always appear as the oppressor.

However, the Church does not think in those reductionist terms. The Church’s understanding of Holy Orders comes from Christ, not from modern social theories. It understands the human person through creation and sacrament, not through identity politics. The Church understands nuptial symbolism as a revelation of salvation, not a tool of domination.

The real “othering” occurs only when Catholicism is forced into frameworks it does not inhabit. Forced into frameworks that cannot understand sacrament, symbolism, or the unity of Holy Orders. Critics who operate within those ideologies inevitably misinterpret the Church because they read her through lenses it cannot accept without contradicting its very nature.

So, the answer to the question is clear:

No, the Church does not “otherize” women. The Church receives both men and women within a sacramental reality given by Christ Himself. It interprets their dignity not through shifting cultural theories but through the divine order of creation and the mystery of redemption.

The Church does not see women as “other,” but as beloved, essential, and integral to the mystery of salvation—honored above all in the person of the Blessed Mother, the highest of all creatures and the model of Christian discipleship.

Those who impose secular frameworks of power, identity, and oppression onto the Church inevitably misinterpret its teachings, because they read the Church through categories it does not—and cannot—use. But within its own sacramental vision, the Church sees men and women not as rivals competing for roles, but as complementary icons of the divine love that Christ reveals.